live voicemail

[dtm84]

Does anyone have more understanding of the new live voicemail? How exactly does this work. My impression is that it is all on device and no longer depends on the carrier? To me the 'old school call screening' suggests I can let it go to voicemail and listen to the message then answer all on my device.

Is this going to be a +$5/mo feature offered by my carrier? Or can I just set it up on my phone?

 

[TimFL1]

It‘s on device and currently US & canada only (english).

 

[CopyChief]

It works! I just received a call and sent it to voicemail. The upper left had a voicemail icon - when I clicked on it, there was a live script with the email. It was cool to watch it autocorrect and figure out what the caller said.

 

[outlawarth]

Stupid question but this isn’t iPhone to iPhone feature only is it?

 

[bookemdano]

Really curious as to how Apple is accomplishing this. I know (think?) Google Voice has had the ability to pull a call back while the caller is leaving a voicemail, but in that case the call never left GV's servers. With traditional cellular voicemail, the network literally forwards the call from your phone to the carrier's own voicemail system after the no-answer timeout. How can the iPhone pull it back?

Definitely a "wow" feature that kinda got overshadowed by the flashier announcements today. Hopefully someone publishes a deep dive on it soon.

 

[SoYoung]

Apple still support voice message transcriptions only in english I think after like 5 or even more years....So another useless feature for all those people not using their iphones in english.

 

[CHI3F117]

Really curious as to how Apple is accomplishing this. I know (think?) Google Voice has had the ability to pull a call back while the caller is leaving a voicemail, but in that case the call never left GV's servers. With traditional cellular voicemail, the network literally forwards the call from your phone to the carrier's own voicemail system after the no-answer timeout. How can the iPhone pull it back?

Definitely a "wow" feature that kinda got overshadowed by the flashier announcements today. Hopefully someone publishes a deep dive on it soon.

I have a feeling it's by "hosting" the voicemail service on device and then uploading the resulting recording to the carrier voicemail system (or maybe not?).

 

[bookemdano]

I have a feeling it's by "hosting" the voicemail service on device and then uploading the resulting recording to the carrier voicemail system (or maybe not?).

That's as good a guess as any, since no details about this have emerged. It would be tricky though because the phone would need to retrieve and store a copy of your greeting (which for most of us these days is just the stock "the number you have reached, XXX-XXXX is not available..."), and would need to be updated on device whenever you change it with your carrier.

Another possibility I thought of this afternoon is that rather than blind forwarding the call to the carrier's VM after the ring timeout, maybe it's doing a 3-way call, where the iPhone stays connected while the carrier's voicemail system is joined in, playing the greeting and recording the message. While the caller is speaking their message, the iPhone is still on the call and thus able to transcribe the message it in real time. If you choose to pull back the call, then the iPhone simply disconnects the connection to the carrier voicemail system and reconnects the iPhone's mic and speaker.

It makes sense in my head, but could easily be wrong about it--just a guess.

 

[CHI3F117]

That's as good a guess as any, since no details about this have emerged. It would be tricky though because the phone would need to retrieve and store a copy of your greeting (which for most of us these days is just the stock "the number you have reached, XXX-XXXX is not available..."), and would need to be updated on device whenever you change it with your carrier.

Another possibility I thought of this afternoon is that rather than blind forwarding the call to the carrier's VM after the ring timeout, maybe it's doing a 3-way call, where the iPhone stays connected while the carrier's voicemail system is joined in, playing the greeting and recording the message. While the caller is speaking their message, the iPhone is still on the call and thus able to transcribe the message it in real time. If you choose to pull back the call, then the iPhone simply disconnects the connection to the carrier voicemail system and reconnects the iPhone's mic and speaker.

It makes sense in my head, but could easily be wrong about it--just a guess.

3 way call makes a ton of sense. That must be it! I just know it's very likely not something with carrier involvement, since they didn't mention carrier support at all.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Really curious as to how Apple is accomplishing this. I know (think?) Google Voice has had the ability to pull a call back while the caller is leaving a voicemail, but in that case the call never left GV's servers. With traditional cellular voicemail, the network literally forwards the call from your phone to the carrier's own voicemail system after the no-answer timeout. How can the iPhone pull it back?

Definitely a "wow" feature that kinda got overshadowed by the flashier announcements today. Hopefully someone publishes a deep dive on it soon.

Perhaps for the iPhone but Google has had that feature on their Pixel phones for several years. It’s called “Goggle Call Screener”. Instead of sending it to voice mail, Google Assistant answers the phone and prompts the caller as to why they are calling. As the person starts to speak, Google Assistant starts to transcribe the call and records it whether the person leaves a VM or not.

 

[WB2Colorado]

Really curious as to how Apple is accomplishing this. I know (think?) Google Voice has had the ability to pull a call back while the caller is leaving a voicemail, but in that case the call never left GV's servers. With traditional cellular voicemail, the network literally forwards the call from your phone to the carrier's own voicemail system after the no-answer timeout. How can the iPhone pull it back?

Definitely a "wow" feature that kinda got overshadowed by the flashier announcements today. Hopefully someone publishes a deep dive on it soon.

It appears that if Live Voicemail is enabled voicemail messages are entirely handled by the phone and not the carrier’s voicemail system. I imagine if you’re in an area with no service when you get a call it will fall back to the carrier’s system

 

[bookemdano]

I posited this in another thread a few days ago, but after thinking about it I bet it works by doing a 3-way call with your carrier's voicemail, as opposed to the traditional behavior of transferring the call to VM and disconnecting.

So if that's the case then after the ring timeout it would "conference in" the voicemail system and stay on the call (in the background of course). It would then listen as the caller speaks, transcribing their message in real time. If you choose to take the call, the phone would simply disconnect the voicemail and rejoin you to it. If you choose not to take the call, then the phone waits until the caller hangs up and then disconnects from the call.

If the phone itself were recording the message, how would the phone know what your voicemail outgoing greeting is? Believe it or not, some people change their greeting frequently (like if they are going to be out-of-office, on vacation etc.).

I could of course be wrong about this. Just a (barely educated) guess.

 

[aiatfe]

Perhaps for the iPhone but Google has had that feature on their Pixel phones for several years. It’s called “Goggle Call Screener”. Instead of sending it to voice mail, Google Assistant answers the phone and prompts the caller as to why they are calling. As the person starts to speak, Google Assistant starts to transcribe the call and records it whether the person leaves a VM or not.

I haven't used either version, but based on what I do know I think I prefer the iPhone version. It's a fairly subtle difference, but I imagine more offence could be caused by having your call answered by a robot demanding to know the reason for the call versus the call just going to voicemail, something people have used for decades and are used to.

 

[WB2Colorado]

I haven't used either version, but based on what I do know I think I prefer the iPhone version. It's a fairly subtle difference, but I imagine more offence could be caused by having your call answered by a robot demanding to know the reason for the call versus the call just going to voicemail, something people have used for decades and are used to.

Google’s is intended as a call screening feature to weed out telemarketers, you probably wouldn’t use it with someone from your contacts or a number you recognize

 

[MegaBlue]

I posited this in another thread a few days ago, but after thinking about it I bet it works by doing a 3-way call with your carrier's voicemail, as opposed to the traditional behavior of transferring the call to VM and disconnecting.

So if that's the case then after the ring timeout it would "conference in" the voicemail system and stay on the call (in the background of course). It would then listen as the caller speaks, transcribing their message in real time. If you choose to take the call, the phone would simply disconnect the voicemail and rejoin you to it. If you choose not to take the call, then the phone waits until the caller hangs up and then disconnects from the call.

If the phone itself were recording the message, how would the phone know what your voicemail outgoing greeting is? Believe it or not, some people change their greeting frequently (like if they are going to be out-of-office, on vacation etc.).

I could of course be wrong about this. Just a (barely educated) guess.

The carrier isn't involved at all when Live Voicemail is activated.

I've done some extensive testing, and the feature pretty much works exactly how Pixel Call Screening and Bixby Call Screening works:

If Live Voicemail is activated, the device itself answers the phone call and records what the user is saying. To your phone company, Live Voicemail looks no different than if you had just answered the call in the first place. It uses Siri to play a message to the caller "Please state why you're calling. The person you're trying to reach may pick up" and then records the audio for a transcript. If you let the call go to voicemail completely, it's entirely isolated from your carrier's voicemail and doesn't sync with any carrier servers at all.

Keep in mind that by default Live Voicemail requires you activate the feature on the incoming call screen the majority of the time. If you don't choose the option, then it eventually will keep ringing until your carrier says "That's enough!" and send the call to your carrier's voicemail.

You can have Live Voicemail activate on unknown callers automatically if you enable the previous call screening feature that sent calls to voicemail.

No 3 way calls, nothing that's done on the carrier side, and so on. It's effectively just answering the call as if you hit "answer" and recording it.

 

[bigjnyc]

The carrier isn't involved at all when Live Voicemail is activated.

I've done some extensive testing, and the feature pretty much works exactly how Pixel Call Screening and Bixby Call Screening works:

If Live Voicemail is activated, the device itself answers the phone call and records what the user is saying. To your phone company, Live Voicemail looks no different than if you had just answered the call in the first place. It uses Siri to play a message to the caller "Please state why you're calling. The person you're trying to reach may pick up" and then records the audio for a transcript. If you let the call go to voicemail completely, it's entirely isolated from your carrier's voicemail and doesn't sync with any carrier servers at all.

Keep in mind that by default Live Voicemail requires you activate the feature on the incoming call screen the majority of the time. If you don't choose the option, then it eventually will keep ringing until your carrier says "That's enough!" and send the call to your carrier's voicemail.

You can have Live Voicemail activate on unknown callers automatically if you enable the previous call screening feature that sent calls to voicemail.

No 3 way calls, nothing that's done on the carrier side, and so on. It's effectively just answering the call as if you hit "answer" and recording it.

If you don't answer do you still get to hear what the person said like the carrier visual voicemail.. and if so where is it? same voicemail tab in the phone app?

 

[WB2Colorado]

If you don't answer do you still get to hear what the person said like the carrier visual voicemail.. and if so where is it? same voicemail tab in the phone app?

Yes visual voicemail works like it always has.

 

[MegaBlue]

If you don't answer do you still get to hear what the person said like the carrier visual voicemail.. and if so where is it? same voicemail tab in the phone app?

If you don’t answer and don’t activate live voicemail, then it just proceeds to your carrier’s voicemail as normal, just like it does now.

Both live voicemails and carrier voicemails live in the Voicemails tab (if your carrier has visual voicemail), but the call log will only show live voicemails.

 

[WB2Colorado]

If you don’t answer and don’t activate live voicemail, then it just proceeds to your carrier’s voicemail as normal, just like it does now.

Both live voicemails and carrier voicemails live in the Voicemails tab (if your carrier has visual voicemail), but the call log will only show live voicemails.

In my testing if you let a call go to voicemail automatically Live Voicemail still activates— an icon shows up in the dynamic island that you can tap on to view the transcription

 

[bertimus2002]

In my testing if you let a call go to voicemail automatically Live Voicemail still activates— an icon shows up in the dynamic island that you can tap on to view the transcription

It doesn't work the best...when I click on the voicemail icon to send someone to VM for Live Voicemail, it then says I can only see it when unlocked, but I can't unlock the phone as it's then stuck on the calling screen.

More than likely a bug, but not quite smooth yet.

iPhone 13 Pro Max - so no dynamic island...that may be where the bug is coming in from.

It's worked when I already had my phone unlocked and could test and see, but if my phone is just sitting there and I don't answer, it won't let me see a live voicemail.

 

[MegaBlue]

In my testing if you let a call go to voicemail automatically Live Voicemail still activates— an icon shows up in the dynamic island that you can tap on to view the transcription

Thanks for the clarification. I was automatically rejecting calls (double-clicking the power button) which would send it to my carrier's voicemail.

 

[bookemdano]

In my testing if you let a call go to voicemail automatically Live Voicemail still activates— an icon shows up in the dynamic island that you can tap on to view the transcription

Can you still pull the call back though? Or is it just the transcription?

 

[walterpaisley]

Just did a bunch of testing, and if you have conditional call forwarding turned on for your line and use Google Voice for voicemail, Live Voicemail doesn't work. The call is transferred to GV and no live preview is generated.

Makes a bit of sense (as the call is not actually hitting voicemail, but being forwarded) but slightly disappointing anyway.

 

[nelw]

So for those of us still paying $5 a month for Visual Voicemail, does this feature mean I can stop paying for it and just rely on the new Live Voicemail?

 

[Paddle1]

So for those of us still paying $5 a month for Visual Voicemail, does this feature mean I can stop paying for it and just rely on the new Live Voicemail?

You can from what I can tell, but you lose the visual voicemail interface so you'll have to look through the recent calls list to view/listen to the transcripts.